WASHINGTON — Virtually no foreign government is off-limits for the National Security Agency, which has been authorized to intercept information from individuals “concerning” all but four countries on Earth, according to top-secret documents.

The U.S. has broad no-spying arrangements with the four countries — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — but a classified 2010 legal certification and other documents indicate the NSA has been given a far more elastic authority than previously known, one that allows it to intercept through U.S. companies not just the communications of its overseas targets, but any communications about its targets as well.

The certification — approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and included among a set of documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden — lists 193 countries that would be of valid interest for U.S. intelligence.

The certification also permitted the agency to gather intelligence about entities such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, European Union and International Atomic Energy Agency, among others.

The NSA is not necessarily targeting all the countries or organizations identified in the certification, affidavits and an accompanying exhibit; it has only been given authority to do so.

Still, the privacy implications are far-reaching, civil liberties advocates say, because of the wide spectrum of people who might be engaged in communication about foreign governments and entities and whose communications might be of interest to the United States.

“These documents show both the potential scope of the government’s surveillance activities and the exceedingly modest role the court plays in overseeing them,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, who had the documents described to him.

NSA officials, who declined to comment on the certification or acknowledge its authenticity, stressed the constraints placed on foreign intelligence-gathering.

The collection must relate to a foreign intelligence requirement — there are thousands — set for the intelligence agencies by the president, director of national intelligence and various departments through the so-called National Intelligence Priorities Framework.

Furthermore, former government officials said, it is prudent for the certification to list every country — even those whose affairs do not seem to immediately bear on U.S. national security interests or foreign policy.

“It’s not impossible to imagine a humanitarian crisis in a country that’s friendly to the United States, where the military might be expected on a moment’s notice to go in and evacuate all Americans,” said a former senior defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

“If that certification did not list the country,” the NSA could not gather intelligence under the law, the former official said.

The documents shed light on a little-understood process that is central to one of the NSA’s most significant surveillance programs: collection of the emails and phone calls of foreign targets under Section 702 of the 2008 FISA Amendments Act.

The foreign government certification, signed by the attorney general and director of national intelligence, is one of three approved annually by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, pursuant to the law. The other two relate to counterterrorism and counterproliferation, according to the documents and former officials.

Under the Section 702 program, the surveillance court also approves rules for surveillance targeting and for protecting Americans’ privacy. The certifications, together with the National Intelligence Priorities Framework, serve as the basis for targeting a person or an entity.

The documents underscore the remarkable breadth of potential “foreign intelligence” collection. Though the FISA Amendments Act grew out of an effort to place under statute a surveillance program devoted to countering terrorism, the result was a program far broader in scope.

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